Why Don’t Lakers Win League Awards?

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Correct.

What's up, Laker fans?

Welcome to the Laker Filmroom podcast.

I'm Pete, joined by Darius.

And last night, the Lakers closed out a successful five in one road trip with a,

I think ended up being a seven point win over the Indiana Pacers D.

They got up big early and cruised to the finish line.

And when I say that, I don't mean as though it were easy.

I mean in the same way that a car that runs out of gas rolls into the gas station,

just in time to fill up again.

But they got the win.

It's one of, I'd say it doesn't games this season that are like,

see, that's why net rating is not the end all be all or games exactly like that.

The game started the very first play.

Jake Loravia gets a defensive stop on, I think it was Walker,

pokes the ball away, dives on the floor, outlets to LeBron,

who's sprinting up the floor, finished by a lob from Jackson.

And boy, were those three really key to the energy over the course of the night.

Luca, just another, you know, ho hum, 40 point night.

Just so incredible, it's just incredible how effortlessly he can score.

And just I loved the effort level for the vast majority of that game.

It was not there at the end.

They certainly unplugged.

I do not have it in me to get all worked up about that.

They were gas.

They were never in danger of losing that game.

Obviously, some points that raise the old blood pressure and all that.

D, but just salute to the Lakers on a game that I thought it would have been

very easy to come out and kind of have less energy than the other team.

It was exactly the opposite.

And I think it was just a testament to several players,

but just the overall team's mindset.

Before this six game road trip started, I was worried about going to and for.

I thought three and three was perfectly viable.

And I thought four and two would be a major success,

particularly if it was the right four games.

I thought for sure they were going to lose at least two games.

I thought one of the games against Houston was a likely loss.

I thought the Miami game was going to be incredibly difficult to win.

And I thought it was basically a scheduled boss.

Although my only pushback against that internally was the idea that I just think

the Lakers are a better team than Miami.

And I thought the Detroit game was going to be a very difficult win.

It was near the end of the trip.

And Detroit plays a certain style and has a formula that I think can work against the Lakers.

Lo and behold, the Lakers go five in one.

A record I didn't even consider as an outcome before the trip started really.

We're right there at the end in the Detroit game.

There's a good basketball team.

I'm not going to say that's going to translate to X number of wins in the post season.

Or this is what I think is going to happen.

Once the playoffs come or even what's going to happen in the final nine games of the regular season

where the Lakers have a very manageable schedule,

but have some do'sies in terms of opponents,

just in terms of strength of schedule on a calendar still throwing all that to the side for a second.

There's just a tough minded physical skillful basketball team that has one of the best players in the world.

Has a player who I still think is the smartest or a second or third smartest player in the entire game.

And that player also doubles as someone that has an ability to ramp up in a way where

is he going to be the player he was five years ago?

He's not necessarily,

but boy, can he still do some things physically that will flummox pretty much any opponent

who is even in the same way classes him physically?

And I haven't even mentioned their stones guard.

They're supposed second best player,

but on any night shifts between second and third and many nights this season has been their best player

who doesn't always have his best game and sometimes aesthetically looks a certain way.

But at the end of the night seems to have 20 points, a handful of assists,

a handful of rebounds and enough defensive stops where you feel like he's out there competing.

I don't know what this team is going to do.

I don't know what they're going to be.

They were down about 70 rotation minutes last night against a team that tried hard

for maybe the third time in the last 10 weeks.

And two of those times were against the Lakers.

And Luca was again,

it's tough to even fathom how good he is when he is truly on his game.

He left about eight points out there easy.

Just in terms of Bowser, he could have drawn and even short little buckets that he missed in

then around the paint.

He didn't have his full game and he walked out of there with 40 something points contender,

not contender.

I honestly don't care about the national narrative as much as I did maybe six weeks ago

when I thought that things were turning for the team and everyone was lagging behind.

If they want to lag behind now, then who gives a shit?

This team is good.

And I trust them to go out there and play their game to a level where I don't know where

that's going to get them, but I trust them now to do exactly that.

And it's going to be fun, regardless.

It is.

I'm going to enjoy it at least.

Yeah, I'm hella excited.

So before the season, I thought this team should be around a 55 win team if it had some

luck with health.

Now, it didn't have luck with health, but they're still going to end up not too far away from

that number.

And seeing them to come together in a way where you're point about LeBron starting to

round into form, that was the most significant part of the road trip for me, and especially

this last game.

And it wasn't just the AI appreciate you guys coming out playing as hard as you did in

a game where it would be easier to look at the schedule and be like, they've got the

worst record in the NBA.

We can just hang with them and then beat them that they came out with spirit.

That's not really the point that I'm saying.

It's actually more of the highlights, the LeBron pointing it to dudes that he just made

look silly or bumping off Walker and then freaking dunking all over Jay Huff with his left

hand.

He's starting to make more and more athletic plays that this is a hallmark of how LeBron

navigates a season and that he ramps up from one gear to the next.

And we're about to see fifth gear LeBron very soon.

And this is something he does at the end of regular seasons is he's like, all right, I'm

going to test the car out and really start to see what I can do.

And starting to see flickers of his athleticism, not being where it was in 2020 or anything

like that, but just certainly a level higher than it's been all season.

It's got me wondering what level can LeBron still reach?

I want to have a whole conversation about that.

I think it's an important conversation to have.

I will also say that as he ramps up, he's going to get to an appropriate place for

himself for this stage of his career at this time of the season and everything else.

Other players around the league and even on his team, I expect them to raise their levels

too.

He wants to play off come.

And so LeBron's level may not be the same as what it was compared to other players.

That said, he's not asked to be the player he was in the past either LeBron showing that

on the final night of a six game road trip that seemingly started almost two weeks ago

or did start two weeks ago.

Him and Jake LaRavia and Jackson Hayes were basically the leaders in energy for the team.

And I would expect that from LaRavia.

He is a guy that we talked about offline, a fair amount just in terms of the way that

he plays is so endearing to both of us.

We talked about it on the pot.

And then Jackson, both of those guys, sort of local kids, right?

Jackson was talking about how he's from Ohio, but Cincinnati, and that's closer to

India.

And he talked about how after the last game in Detroit, he actually went home with his

parents instead of traveling with the TV, he got to hang out with mom and dad, got a

home cook meal from my mom hung out with my dad and then came to the game and my mom

and dad were up there watching me play and it felt good to go out there and play hard

and get some stuff done for them.

LaRavia is from around that area as well and he looked ready to be like, hey, man, I'm

going to go out here and compete and he was a cookie monster yesterday, Pete getting

deflections and swiping steels and just taking the ball from the opponent.

But right next to 225 year olds was a 41 year old who was sprinting the floor and getting

angry at the refs for not calling fouls when he's clearly getting hit like on the arms

and he's finishing around the basket and, oh, you're not going to call it.

Well, then I'm just going to flush one right on you and, oh, you're going to call that

one.

He was looking like Earl Campbell and then it made me think of the beast mode, a Martian

Lynch quote where he's like run through a MFers face and that's exactly what he did.

Yeah.

LeBron just truck stick the guy and then dunked on a second guy.

The ability of this team to sort of find itself at this stage of the season, Pete.

I credit the players.

I credit JJ Reddick and his coaching staff.

One of the things that JJ's talked a lot about over the course of the year is like outside

noise.

Whenever it's come up, he's mentioned like that's outside noise.

That's like other people's what they think, what they expect.

We have our internal expectations.

We have our own ideas about what we can be and what we should be and we're trying to

get there.

You can get closer to there.

It feels like if that was the mission at the start of the season and with all the injuries

that they had to start the year and throughout the year that he's gotten them there and there's

less than 10 games left in the season now and this team playing their best basketball right

now, which is exactly what you would want from any team that's trying to do something

in the post season.

With respect to outside noise and external expectations, last night the Lakers passed

their projected over under their Vegas win total was projected at 46 and a half.

They got their 47th win last night.

Let's go to break here.

Want to change the subjects and I want to talk about a rabbit hole I went down last night.

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So as I'm watching as go up 20 in the first quarter and the team play very hard and watching

Jake LaRavia really open the game, just dominating the first couple of minutes and I'm thinking

I'm like, man, we got two starting level players in Deandre, Aiton and Marcus Smart this

summer, along with another rotation guy in Jake and another rotation player that's helped

out a lot in Canard at the deadline, while what went out was Gabe, DFS and a second round

pick.

And I'm like, man, that is an awesome season.

Just from a bank for your buck standpoint, they got so much out of that and now I'm watching

this team.

I never expected this year to be much at all and I'm like, oh shit, wait, this is a good

ass team.

And so I was thinking, I was like, you know, and there was no way that there would ever

be any recognition for that, right?

Like, I don't think you could get Rob Plankett to get a top three finish for executive of

the year if you only pulled Laker fans, right?

So the idea that national media would ever vote for that.

But I was wondering, I was like, you know, the Lakers haven't won a major award since Lamar

Odom won six men in the year in 2011.

This is the 15th season since then.

And assuming that no Laker finishes top three this year, that's going to be, you know,

15 years in a row where the Lakers have not won any top award.

And so I was looking through like, what are the other teams, what is that compare around

the league?

Where are the Lakers rank in this respect?

And so of the 30 teams, the major awards that we're considering here are regular season

MVP, rookie of the year, coach of the year, executive of the year, defensive player of

the year, six men of the year, and most improved player of the year.

Over the last 15 seasons, the spurs of one eight, they lead the league of all of those

categories combined.

Then you got a group of Golden State Milwaukee Clippers, O.K.C. with six Utah, Toronto, Denver

and Memphis with five, Boston, Minnesota, Philly, Nix, Indiana, Houston with four, Miami

Cleveland Phoenix with three, Orlando, Chicago, Portland, Atlanta, Sacramento with two, Dallas,

Charlotte and the Pelicans with one.

The Lakers are one of only four teams in the league over the last 15 years that have not

won a single major league award.

Now you might say, Lakers were bad for a good portion of that time and they were, I don't

have any arguments for the teams, right, in terms of any of the years during the teens

that the Lakers should have won a major award.

I also say that over the last five Lakers championship seasons, the Lakers have one

zero of those awards.

And so there's also only one player can win, right?

So I wanted to extend that out to, well, what about top three, right?

If you're top three, you're kind of a finalist, I believe, for these categories.

And how many times has a Laker finished in the top three?

And what are the top three finishes league wide over the last 15 years across franchises?

League leaders, OKC with 22, Milwaukee and Utah with 19, the Clippers with 17, the Warriors

and Spurs with 16, Houston with 14 and a half, I will explain the half in a little bit.

Cleveland in Denver with 14, Miami with 13, Philly with 12, the Nix with 9 and a half, the

Wolves and Sons with 9, Boston, Chicago and Indiana with 8, Memphis and the Pelicans

with 7, the Pistons with 6 and a half, Toronto with 6, Atlanta, Sacramento and Orlando

with 5, Dallas with 4, Charlotte, Brooklyn and Portland with 3, the Lakers with 2 and a

half, and Washington, the Washington Wizards of the only team in the league that's one fewer

major accolades around the league over the last 15 years than the Lakers or finished top

three.

I'm sorry, or finished top three, thank you.

That's just top three finishes like you're in the conversation and the half on that

is both Lou Williams and Derek Rose were traded mid season in 6th man of the year top three

finishes.

One of them was with the Lakers, right?

Lou Will, I think was that 2017-18 where he was coming off the bench for us, had a really

good year.

We got traded at Houston and they were a really good team and he helped them kind of go

to a next level and won that there.

So I just gave a half to each of them, right?

But the only team that's finished top three fewer times is the Wizards.

And so you might say, well, what are the times where the Lakers might have had a case

to just at least finish top three?

Austin Reeves went from undrafted to being the monster that he is now without ever finishing

higher than 5th in most improved voting.

Frank Vogel finished 5th the year we kicked everyone's ass and won the championship in

coach of the year voting.

We got zero first place votes.

The two and a half times that we got top three was that Lou Williams time, that's the

half.

LeBron second in MVP in 2020, AD second in defensive player of the year in 2020.

The top three won especially, I feel like we've got this contingent of fans that are

Luca fans that washed up on our shores after a very unexpected trade.

And that got like that, MVP awards and things like that are part of the historical narrative.

When we talk about Jordan and Kareem and all of the all time great type of conversations,

it's one of the things you bring up is Kareem won six MVP's, right?

If you're expecting that to happen with the Lakers, that would be flying in the face of

the last 30 years of history, right?

Like again, the Lakers have zero words the last five times they won the chip.

And so I just forgive me, I went down a rabbit hole last night, I wanted to share all of

that D.

It's super interesting.

I remember I was talking about this a couple of years ago, remember when AD started out

the season, amazing.

And there was this discussion of AD possibly being a top three MVP candidate while also

potentially being one of the guys who might win defensive player of the year.

And there was this like, I felt a push from the beginning of the year.

I can't remember if you still worked for the team at that point or not, but I distinctly

remember it coming out of the Lakers as well.

They're sort of being this buzz around ADP OI, yeah, this dude's awesome and you need

to recognize it.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I did work there at the time.

Yeah.

Yes.

So thank you very much.

Hey, look, I think that year he finished fourth, maybe in D P O I, I can't remember that

it might have been Wendy's like rookie year or his second season.

And I remember when we basically leapfrogging him and that might have been the year that

BAM won.

And I get it, man, to a certain degree that there is only one person who can win and winning

the actual award is difficult.

The top three stuff is eye opening to me just because the stuff you talked about with

Austin Reeves, even the stuff with like AD or LeBron and where he should finish LeBron's

been a perpetual first team all NBA player for him to not sniff even like top three of MVP

voting is also an interesting idea to me, particularly in the years where the Lakers

consistently overachieve.

This is something that I was thinking about when you started talking about the over under

idea because I have another rent.

I listened to over under podcasts at the start of every season because it's a great time

to get a sense of where the national writers and the national analysts, where they think

the Lakers are.

And there's a common theme whenever the Lakers come up in over under discussions that the

number is set actually higher than what it should be because Laker fans are zombies that

just always vote and there's so many of us and always going to smash the over.

I have I have a counterpoint to this, but please continue.

Good.

I'm glad that you do because I think it's an important part of the framing of what

the Lakers are supposed to be every season and how the goal posts can often move with

them specifically.

But every year I hear that same explanation and I hear people like Bill Simmons and even

Brian Winhorse or whoever, people who follow the league and are smart in their own way.

And Simmons has an anti Lakers bias, but he'll be honest about it.

But person after person after person will tell you, yeah, that's inflated.

It's an inflated number.

Take the under.

The Lakers have been overachieving, particularly under JJ Reddick now for two straight seasons.

And the idea that they wouldn't be a good regular season team or that the value of the

players that they signed would be bad.

It's a constant idea of the deficit model that we discuss a ton.

It's everything that these players aren't.

Rather than actually like, what are they going to do that's going to help the team?

It's always A plus B equals Lakers suck to these people.

Let's go to break here.

I want to come back and counter that point.

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So, that point about the Lakers win total being overinflated.

I'd like to point out that this is the third out of the last four seasons where the

Lakers hit the over on their win total with the one exception being the time they missed

by half a game.

When Darwin Ham started fucking Torium Prince for 50 games, they should have easily hit

their over on that one as well.

And the argument that is always made that I've heard win horse make this argument is that

well, you know, if you average over the last five seasons or whatever it is, the Lakers

are three to five game.

I don't remember the exact number, but it's, they get projected to win that many games

over what they actually end up winning.

What he never points out is that's completely distorted by one season, the full Russell

Westbrook season, where the over under was off by like 17 games.

And so, altogether, like if you wanted to average all of them together, but it's really

only been off once in that respect.

Every other time the Lakers have exceeded it, this example, though, is the most egregious.

We won 50 games last year.

I swear to God, these motherfuckers every other week are tweeting what an egregious trade

the Ducodontra trade was.

Whenever I see the Lakers doing well, I inevitably see one of them just being like, I can't believe

they made that trade.

Just the worst trade in history, even all of this more than a year later, various, how

do you hold these beliefs simultaneously?

The Lakers won 50 games last season.

You think the Lakers, two thirds of the way through that season, added a player that was

so much better than the guy that they traded away that it's literally one of the worst

trades in NBA history.

The Lakers then also add Marcus Smart, who I swear you motherfuckers just voted defensive

player of the year, a couple of years ago, and he's not dead, he's 30, 31 years old.

And DeAndre Aiton, who I know everybody hates, but is legitimately a 15 and 10 guy, his

entire career.

How do you hold all of that?

The fact that the Lakers already won 50 games, and then when 46 and a half hits your desk,

you're like, pff, under.

It's a tough circle to square.

It's one of the things that I just have a hard time reconciling in general when I think

about the national discussion around the Lakers.

We'll see if Luca finishes.

I don't know.

I'm trying to.

I think he finishes fourth.

It feels like he's going to finish fourth right now, but behind Shay Wembee and Yokehitch,

if he cracks the top three, I'd love that.

And in fact, I'm going on this rant.

In fact, in part, just to shame these motherfuckers into maybe one of them here is, and did you

hear that thing that, that stat that only the wizards have, you were talking to me finishing?

That's part of the reason I'm going on this rant now of all times.

That like, come on, man.

Yeah, I don't know if he's going to climb into the top three in the last draw pull that

was done by Tim Bond, Timps.

And this is a pretty good predictor in terms of where things go.

And so I don't want to like poo poo this by any means, like he asked actual voters, actual

voters, and tell him where they're leaning.

And from what I have found, Pete, it's very hard to get a sports writer off of an idea

that he had six months ago, as being the same thing that he's going to think.

I get that minds do change, and that when you're talking about the very best players,

you can switch between Yannis and Steph Curry, or you can switch between Yannis and LeBron,

or you can switch between Yolkage and Beade, and it can change.

But it's very rare that a guy goes from fifth or out of the race to third, you know, or

whatever.

Anyways, Luca was pulling forth in that time.

And things have changed though since then.

Luca's on a historical heater.

I saw another stat last night where he's the first player since Michael Jordan, I think,

to average 40 points or more on a road trip of six games or more.

That's it.

Only two players who have ever done it, not even our beloved Kobe Bryant.

That's an insane stat.

Kobe's one of the most road killer killers that ever existed.

I told you by theory about the Kobe and Shaq Lakers, how Shaq, sort of, this sounds

pejorative, but I don't mean me this way.

He had more of a front rudimentality and he thrived at home.

Yeah.

No, he would kill you.

It was like, he would kill you.

It's not like a, oh, he would quit if time's got tough.

It's not that.

It's just that if Shaq had an advantage on you, there was no greater player at like hammering

home that advantage for both himself and his whole team in NBA history.

And those moments where the crowd starts to exult you, he only got stronger, right?

So it's just like he loved the adoration seemingly of the fans.

I'm not in this head, but it was just the sense that I got from watching him.

It's just like he wanted to have the crowd hear him stepping on your face.

Like that's the sort of question he was.

And Kobe was the type that wanted to hear you boo him carrying the heart out of your

favorite player and then go silent as he held the beating heart in his hand.

He was a psychopath in that way.

And so they were the great Yun and Yang, the 2001 playoff run was basically Shaq killing

you at home and Kobe killing you on the road and they never lost.

Yeah.

It was unreal.

This way.

I say all that just to bring it back to Luca.

It's like it's crazy to me that Kobe never did anything exactly like this.

But Luca's been on a heater now for well over a month.

It feels like and I'm sure the perception of him going from on the fringes of first

team all NBA to definite first team all NBA.

That feels real to me based off of the people who I listen to talk from a national perspective.

How sporting of them for that he was always first team all NBA.

That's exactly my point is that like the idea that he was ever questionable in that

respect and from the fucking galaxy brain take that he needed to do this in order to solidify

his first team all NBA.

That's exactly my point.

It is nonsense.

I think where I'm landing with some of this though is that that external noise, the motivation

that like we could speculate all we want and probably even be right on some of this

stuff about why it exists and where it comes from.

We can go down that road if you want.

But to me, it's more just it gets old.

It really does.

And I don't want to play the victim.

No, I just want same coverage of my basketball team from non-lake offense.

That's it.

You don't need to kiss our ass.

You don't need to lie to us.

It just but there's so many people with open contempt for the makers.

It's very normal to within media circles both on TV and in print that there are many

people that have awards votes that every chance they get will shit on the lakers.

That's like there's no other team that has that relationship with with the media like it's

weird.

I just stop being weird.

That's all I want.

Here's my thing and I think that this holds true for fans of our generation.

There was no person more honest about the lakers in their highest of highs and their lowest

of lows than the spokesperson who talked to us during every single game that we watched

as lakers fans growing up.

And so I have a very keen understanding and it's built into the ethos of how I think we both

cover the team and what our thoughts are around the team.

And that chicken taught me that when they're bad, you say that they're bad.

When they're great, you say that they're great.

And when they're doing something that entertains you and that is fun, you get to enjoy that

moment in the same way that when they do shit that pisses you off, you get to say that's

not great.

And I don't like that.

And so we can, you and me can talk about how two months ago, Luca was pissing us off

with some of the shot selection and whatever else was going on and not have that be this

casting of judgment on what we think of him overall as a player.

What we're talking about is the thing that's happening right now.

And there's a through line of what I hope is just honesty of what we see our true about

what we see.

And it's not a truth that's based off of anything else than loving basketball, loving the

lakers and understanding that our love for them doesn't mean that we have to exalt them

when they play like crap.

And our love for them doesn't mean that we have to like hold them to some obscene standard

that doesn't exist for anyone else.

No, our love translates to this idea of all you got to do is just say what you see.

And if you say what you see and enjoy the things that apply to you and then you speak

to the things that are your little hiccups and you explain why then that's it.

That's all you got to do.

And the thing that bothers me are agendas.

The thing that bothers me are the things where it's like, where's that actually coming

from?

Why are you actually saying that?

Why is this actually going this way?

Why is the coverage tilted in this exact way?

People are nuts about the lakers and LeBron through accelerant on this.

It's not his fault.

But people are nuts about LeBron in the exact same way that people are nuts about the

lakers.

I was watching a YouTube shorts the other day and there is this video of Jay Cole explaining

a time that his son met up with LeBron.

This was very recently.

This was on the road trip to Miami P.

Oh, was it?

This was just when they were in Miami the other day LeBron was going to the Miami

game with his bucket hat in the shorts.

Right.

Okay, I didn't realize this just happened.

And so Jay Cole is talking about how his son is just starting to get into basketball

and LeBron's is hero and is like, he reached out to bronze people and was like, hey,

you think, you know, my son could meet Bronn and Bronn was like, cool, I'll do it.

And so LeBron knowing that he's going to meet up with Jay Cole grabs his vinyl because

he wants to get Jay Cole to sign it for his collection, right?

And so there's a still photo of LeBron like getting into his car and he got the record

under his arm.

You look at all the social media comments.

People are fucking nuts.

That's the most performative athlete of all time.

Look at him just being out like, I don't even know what the angle is in terms of the

what you think he's trying to do.

But it's like, bro, it's just like going to the game.

This goes back to the LeBron, doesn't read idea to where he was always holding a book

or one of whatever book he was.

Right.

But there is a segment of fans as like LeBron's fake that everything is for show with him,

right?

Like the reading of the books, the caring of the vinyl, right, that it's all some sort

of idea that he's like putting on a performance for other people.

I understand that that's the narrative about it.

What I'm saying is that that's Jay Cole, that's somebody on the other side of it explaining

additional context that gives you the understanding that it's like, bro's just walking to his

car with his vinyl, like he's like, oh, he wants to meet up.

Oh, damn, Jay Cole's going to be here.

Let me get this signed real quick.

It's just a totally normal regular person thing to do.

And people get these fucking conspiracy theories that it's just nods, man.

And Jay Cole, I saw this same clip that you're talking about.

And Jay Cole basically explained, there's all backstory to this and no one knows.

And he's like, and honestly, if you wouldn't have shown me that picture right now, I never

would have told this story and no one ever would have known that this was the thing because

no one's out there saying that LeBron's going to go meet my kid after the game and say

what's up.

He's like, and as a father, I'm like, man, like this was one of the first times I ever

had to like ask someone else for something or ask them to do something for my kids where

and then I see my kids eyes light up when they're meeting this person who they see as a superhero.

And then that guy's bringing something for me to sign and just like the whole gamut of

emotions around that.

Yeah.

And Jay Cole's on the other side of that experience a ton, right?

Where I'm sure he gets a ton of people be like, hey, can you meet my kid, you're his

hero type of thing that just being on the other side of that, that was, you know, a lot

of his point.

All right.

Gonna wrap up here.

This is fun.

Thank you for letting me rant a bit on this one.

We will be back tomorrow.

Talk more Lakers.

But until then, you've been listening to the Laker Filmroom podcast.

We'll catch you guys next time.

James has got to be unloaded.

The Kale wants to turn these double-team.

Just pass out about broken up by Worthy.

Get some magic.

Worthy guys are in the belly.

Magic storm.

Magic got it.

Magic fire is again.

They will Lakers win the game.

The Lakers win the game.

Get out of the line.

Three seconds left.

That next one will win it.

It's out of the line.

Yeah.

The Corby Bryant.

48 points.

16 Revolves.

Right.

Revolves.

Any drop?

John Fatties.

An NBA finals record.

A lot of Laker fans.

What's going on for this?

You're seeing something that's very rare indeed.

A Laker to get MVP chance in Boston.

Of all places.

Are you kidding me?

Totally.

Hard to believe.

Are you kidding me?

Unreal.

Are you kidding me?

Lakers looking to person.

Bryant spinning in the lane.

Back for Gasson.

Ready pass.

And it's back to a 3-point game.

Goal be Bryant.

Pick that by Bell.

There's the move.

Two or score.

Listen.

One, two, three.

What's over?

Got caught down of five.

One.

Yeah.

And up with a little top towel, the jet tree.

And it's all the injury, Kobe.

I mean, what is it?

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

It's all the injury.

Kobe.

I mean, what a shot.

I mean, you can't defend that.

Are you kidding me?

2.1 seconds remaining.

Denver a foul to give.

Yokech.

Trying to disrupt Rondo.

He puts it in.

Here's Davis for three in the win.

Oh, it's gone.

Anthony Davis has won it for the Lakers.

James again.

Oh, he hits another one.

LeBron James.

Putting together a closing corner against the Nuggets.

The Stork 2020 NBA championship belongs to the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers conquer the bubble.

And banner number 17 will soon hang in the rafters.

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